>While working with the National Trust Restoration Workshop, we would treat
wood which had a surface which was friable from UV degradation but not in
need of epoxy consolidation with the 1/1 boiled linseed application.....there
is
no chemical bonding of paint to wood, but mechanical adhesion>

I agree.  I've used the 1/1 countless times (there wasn't any epoxy
consolidants) and it worked fine, tho' it needed to dry for sometimes a
couple of weeks if the weather was funny.  Don't know how someone got the
boiled/raw thing mixed up.  It's the boiled (or otherwise kick-started) oil
that polymerizes.  True, of course, that it's a great food source for
itty-bitty's, but that won't cause a problem if it's top-coated.
Fact is, like someone said, linseed oil kinda passe', now.  Tung works
better, and Abatron's consolidants work better still.  Everything's gotta
dry, though - don't know any way of facing a gray, dried-out sill on Monday
and expecting to top-coat on Tuesday.

Re primer adhesion, there is, I believe I can hear Dick Fitch saying, an
ionic transfer that occurs between primers and their substrates (above and
beyond the mechanical grab).  I don't have the phone number in front of me
for Bartley's Reproduction Furniture in Maryland, but if someone wanted to
look it up and ask for Dick, they'd be talking to one of the answer-men in
the field of paints and varnishes.

Wonderful discussion, this.

John Mascaro